The Renaissance Faire!!

So after coming home at 3am on Friday night, we got up and ready to go to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire on Saturday!!  We were tired but we also had so much adrenaline from the fun of playing.  Bella dressed up in her mermaid costume and Lala, Ceci and I dressed up like fairies.  Its so fun to dress up because the actors will interact with you more!

The faire was wonderful.  The location isn't the best, (not enough trees!) but it was super fun and has really become so family oriented.  We got there just after they opened and we went straight to the Maypole to watch the country dancers.  We were so lucky!  The Queen came and she was so nice!  She introduced herself to Bella.  Then she and the dancers wrapped the Maypole partially.  Then we were asked if we wanted to help?  Of course we did! One dancer helped Ceci and I, another helped Bella, and the Queen herself helped Lala! We each had a ribbon to wrap the Maypole. It was really fun!  Then we all got to dance with the dancers.  I loved it soooooo much!!  I used to dance in a group just like this many years ago and I almost remembered the dance. After dancing with the country dancers, we went to the "Kids Kingdom" where there were shows all day for kids to see. We started by watching a very lively choir sing songs for kids.  It was fun and interactive.  We stayed for the next show which was a wonderful and funny magician, Merlin.  He was great!  

We then went  to make some leather pouches.  Bella and Lala each made one.  They started by stamping their names into them with stamps and a mallet. Then, they decorated them with flowers and butterflies also with stamps. Then they sewed them together which was a pretty challenging task! (We spent about an hour.) They came out beautifully.   After this we had some lunch--Shepherds pies. Then we learned about a gnome hunt that was going on all around the faire.  Every time we found a gnome with a blue hat, we got a stamp from the place we found it.  We found 15 different gnomes while we wandered & shopped!  In the end, we got a certificate and a pewter gnome pin. Throughout the faire we saw so many wonderful things--a lady weaving baskets, a lady spinning yard on a wheel, a lady playing a harpsichord.  We also saw a beautiful family of ducks!  One of our favorite shows is "Moonie the Magnifient."  He is hilarious!  He's pretty much a jester that culminates his performance by juggling three lit torches while on a tightrope!!  He was AWESOME!!  After his show and lots of gnome-hunting, we sat and enjoyed a Belly Dancing show.  By this time, there was only about an hour left until closing.   We went swinging on the giant swing.  I can't tell you how fun that was!!  We then got a big strawberry shortcake a la mode.  We ate it so fast!!  So we got another one and did it again!!  Then we danced a little to some drums with the belly dancers and then it was time to go!!  We hated to leave and we were some of the last ones to go!!  We were so dirty as you can see in this last picture!